


Notes Slipped Through

by ThisCatastrophe



Category: Naruto
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Commissioned Work, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Gift Giving, No Uchiha Massacre, Workplace Relationship, conniving shisui, mixed with supportive shisui, oblivious itachi, oc medical nin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-11-01 01:20:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20806040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisCatastrophe/pseuds/ThisCatastrophe
Summary: Itachi develops feelings for a coworker, Tachibana Naomi, after she saves his life during a covert operation. She keeps leaving him gifts in his work locker. Are these gifts medical follow-ups, or hints at deeper feelings? Will Shisui manage to get these two together, or will he have a conniption fit before he gets Itachi to see the picture? (Oc/Canon. Rated M for semi-sexual nudity.)





	Notes Slipped Through

**Author's Note:**

> Commissioned by @EggtachiArt on Twitter! Possible TW for poisoning in the line of shinobi work. Thanks for the commission. I had a lot of fun with this story <3

The moon slipped quietly behind one of the many clouds mottling the sky, and beneath it two figures slipped quietly back through the gates of Konoha.

Uchiha Itachi’s shoulders relaxed notably, and he leaned gently into Tachibana Naomi’s side as she adjusted her grip on his waist. The after-effects of the Land of Mist’s chakra-poisons still felt heavy and piercing in his belly, and even days later he needled at his bottom lip thinking of his mission partner’s reaction to his poisoning--shoving a fistful of charcoal down his throat the second his hands went numb, then shutting him up in their inn rooms for days feeding him a strange, swamp-water-tasting dusky-blue powder and checking his chakra network obsessively. It was humiliating, though he reminded himself that the humiliation was all paid for; here he was, back at home.

He pulled away, attempting to stand straight, found himself too weak to walk alone, and settled for a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She placed a firm grip on the back of his shirt and tossed a stray strand of red-brown hair out of her eyes.

“Let me walk you back home,” she murmured. Blinking, she glanced around at the gate and the guard station behind them, as if just made aware that her Land of Fire accent was no longer a liability. Naomi finished in a full voice, hushed somewhat by the night but attended once more by a richness of tone that Itachi had come to expect from her speech. “You’re still a little weak.”

Wobbling somewhat, Itachi watched his feet and nodded gently. The two shinobi stood still for a second while his balance collected, then wandered slowly towards the pristine storefronts and scrubbed-sparkling cobblestones of the Uchiha district.

\--

Three days, two 20-hour naps, and countless afternoon hang-out sessions with his terribly worried little brother later, Itachi finally staggered through the hidden doorway behind the city’s nastiest barbeque shop and into ANBU headquarters.

By the time he was halfway down the winding downward staircase that lead to ANBU’s various operations centers, libraries, and research tanks, Shisui had already caught up with him and had prompted a thousand-question recap of Itachi and Naomi’s non-official-cover trip into the Land of Mist. Inside the locker room, he found three more coworkers--Yukari, Kakashi, and whoever was behind the Ox Mask--and all their questions. Hands still weak, he fumbled with the padlock on his equipment cubby and did his best to be a good sport.

“So I saw some blue powder on Naomi’s desk--is that what she fed you? When you got poisoned?” Ox-Mask rumbled behind their porcelain shroud. “My bet’s on chakra-pumped thallium. Please tell me it was thallium.”

“Well, that’s quite a rude line of questioning,” Kakashi said, nudging the nose of their mask with a knuckle. “Now, I’d rather hear if you found the--”

Wordlessly, Itachi produced a spiral-bound paper packet from an equipment pouch. “The Kirigakure Writers Symposium Icha-Icha Fanwork Compendium, Tactics Special Edition,” he announced.

Kakashi whistled low, admiring the cover before snatching the book up and tucking it under his arm. “Mission accomplished, my young friend. You didn’t--?”

“--declare it to the guards at re-entry, no. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Satisfied, Kakashi slipped out the locker room door, no doubt to one of his many relaxing spots across town. Ox-Mask tailed after him, begging for a peek at one of the headline works, and drug Yukari out by the arm before the heavy door swung closed behind them. 

Shisui watched the door shut before turning back to his clansman. “Naomi’s been asking after you,” he commented. “Asking if you took the medicine she sent to the District and if you were getting plenty of sleep and fluids.” A tiny smile bloomed in the left corner of his lips. “It’s sweet.”

Itachi blinked slowly, then finally pulled the padlock open. “It  _ is _ nice of her to worry. I should tell her that--”

Now that the metal door of his cubby was open, Itachi peered into the darkness at an unexpected sight: a little shiny packet wrapped with a tiny fabric bow, cushioning a stiff bit of paper. He picked the two foreign objects and turned them over, the packet crinkling gently between his fingers.

“After the toxins wear off, your hands may still be somewhat weak,” read the note. “Spend a little time working on fine motor control and your strength and range of motion should recover faster. Be well. Signed, Tachibana.”

Itachi glanced down at the packet. Its shiny foil packaging showed a smiling cartoon of a sweet pudding in a chef’s outfit, mixing a pot of non-anthropomorcized pudding. ‘Fun for ages five and up,’ read a tiny description on one corner. 

“Do-it-yourself pudding kit, huh? That’s certainly one way to make your point.” Shisui leaned forward to read Naomi’s note over Itachi’s shoulder, his sly smile growing by the moment.

Itachi, meanwhile, furrowed his brow. He hadn’t eaten a do-it-yourself candy kit in years, not since his brother was small and still distracted by shiny foil packages at the grocer’s. “I’m sure I can get a little fine motor work out of this,” he commented. “Maybe I’ll go buy a few more to be sure.”

“That’s not--hm.” Shisui’s smile broke into a frown. “Alright. You do that, Itachi. Go right ahead.”

Shisui was already out the door before Itachi thought to question his frown.

\--

“Dark chocolate? Really?”

Itachi reached into his cubby and removed the rice-paper-wrapped packet; it certainly smelled of dark chocolate, true to Naomi’s note that was sticking out of the door vent this morning. ‘Dark chocolate stimulates nervous system growth,’ it reported. Short of picking up a medical textbook, Itachi couldn’t say if that was accurate or not.

“It seems so. It’s a nice gesture,” he commented. He untied the twine closure at the top of the pouch and gingerly pushed the chocolates around to examine them. They seemed homemade, half of them shaped like stars, several of them broken, a few shaped like smooth clubs--or maybe pestles, he thought, considering Naomi’s family crest. “She’s very invested in my nervous health. Very professional of her.”

“Professional. Sure.” Shisui, leaning up against the next cubby over, watched Itachi’s hands for a long moment, then sighed and stood straight. “I think you should go see her, Itachi. This is the third gift in two weeks. Don’t leave the woman hanging.”

For a long moment, Itachi considered. He looked down at the little star-shaped chocolates--he didn’t normally eat anything ANBU headquarters, on the off chance of a resident operative in the building, but they really did smell good--and thought about Naomi. Of course, he thought, he’d love to go visit her. They’d grown close over the course of their mission, and though it embarrassed him initially their cover identities as a married pair of stage magicians was, deep down, thrilling to play out. Itachi felt his cheeks and ears warm ever-so-slightly, thinking about the evening he spent with Naomi on stage at the daimyo’s grandson’s birthday party, officially listening for loose-lipped children and drunk wives of minor lords but really listening for her laughter and the rumbles at the edges of her strong, stage-ready voice.

None of that was to say she had the same thoughts. Her actions were those of a consummate professional.  _ She saved my life _ , Itachi thought,  _ and everything she’s done has been in the interest of my recovery. _ With a little sigh, he cleared his head of the echos of evenings spent undercover as someone much closer to Naomi. He’d visit to thank her for her services. But he wouldn’t get his hopes up.

“I’ll stop by to see her tomorrow,” he said aloud, finally looking up at Shisui. “We should have some sort of professional follow-up meeting. She might want to check that there’s no lasting nerve damage.”

“You socially awkward potato.”

“What?”

Shisui huffed a short sigh, then turned to leave the locker room. “Nevermind. Go to your professional follow-up meeting.”

\--

“Professional follow-up meeting?” 

Naomi looked up at him from her rickety desk in the ANBU headquarters’ moldiest, dingiest room. Only when she squinted did it occur to Itachi that he might be blocking her light, the way he was looming over her too-short desk in this too-dark room; he stepped to the side to allow her light, wondering somewhat when her expression of confusion only deepened.

“Yes,” he said. “You are my primary caretaker for the poisoning, and the primary caretaker usually does a professional medical follow-up meeting when treatment is near its end. Correct?”

“Aren’t medical follow-ups… usually professional by default, Uchiha?” Naomi smirked at him somewhat, then clapped her hands together and pushed away from her cluttered desk. “Here. If you want a follow-up, give me your hands.”

A dim blue light, mottled and shifting like the reflection of the sun on moving water, glossed over her outstretched palms, stretching over Itachi’s hands as well when he finally held them out. Naomi closed her eyes, brows furrowed, and chewed at the inside of her cheek as her chakra crawled through the air towards Itachi’s hands. It followed the shifting light, probing into the nerve endings of his fingers and palms, into the chakra nodes in his wrists, hissing like a dying firework as it left each spot and moved onto the next. 

Itachi watched her face intently, almost too intently--when Naomi reopened her eyes, he was somewhat startled, and pulled his hands away instinctively. “Well, you’re a terminal dork, but physically you’re fine.” She paused for a second, then grinned somewhat, glancing away and fidgeting with at a folded up paper on her desk. “But I appreciate that you came to visit. It’s nice to see you again.”

“It was.” Itachi looked down at his hands, trying to see where the chakra had flowed through him, but even with the Sharingan the nodes were too small. “I’ll… come back by if something goes wrong.”

A wrinkle formed on Naomi’s forehead. Itachi didn’t watch long enough to see the end of the expression. He hurried out just as his ears began to burn.

\--

“You what? Come on, Itachi,” Shisui groaned. “You had to talk to her about what’s going on between you two.”

“Nothing is going on.” Itachi wrestled with the padlock, shoulders slumped just slightly. Part of him wished this conversation was a lie, that there was indeed something going on. But. “She’s a consummate professional--”

Crinkle. Clunk.

Shisui stepped up to Itachi’s shoulder and stooped down to peer at the cubby he’d just unlocked. “What’s in there? Don’t tell me it’s…” A black wheel unfolded in his irises, face wrinkling into a stern, serious scowl.

Itachi leaned forward just slightly, tipping his head. “It smells like a candle.”

After a second of hesitation, Shisui reached around Itachi’s shoulder and gently slipped his hand through the cubby, careful to leave the door mostly closed. He blinked, surprised, and retrieved a large, sunset-orange wax candle, tapered near the bottom and top-heavy, and turned it over in his hand. “It is a candle,” he said. “And there’s a… a soap? There’s something else in there.”

Itachi pulled the door fully open and examined the rest of the locker. Nestled between his whetstone and a roll of replacement chainmail links was a translucent rice-paper package with a pinkish, crumbly-looking bar inside, and a folded up note on star-decorated stationery. He reached in to grab the note and, after glancing at Shisui’s new, intense expression, read it aloud.

“‘Itachi,’” he began, “‘Here’s a little something for you later today. Have a bath and maybe you’ll stop being so high-strung.’” Itachi paused for a moment, swallowing. “Ah, there’s more… ‘Tell me how you like the scent bar. I made it just for you.’”

He remained silent for a second, then turned to look at Shisui. “Well, that’s nice of--”

“--just how dense are you?” Shisui interrupted. “The girl is doing her damndest to get you to notice her and even though you’re into it, all you can do is treat her like a sterilized instrument.”

“She isn’t--”

Shisui tapped his index finger over Itachi’s mouth. “She is. Look, it’s not your fault you can’t see it. You’re… a special kind of stunted. You’re a child soldier. You didn’t get to flirt with your classmates; you were too young for that. And your coworkers haven’t always been your age. You’re a socially awkward potato.”

Itachi frowned for a moment. “Potatoes aren’t sentient, so I don’t see the comparison--”

He grimaced in surprise when Shisui clapped both hands on his shoulders and forced him to sit on the locker room bench. Nobody but a dear friend, a trusted clansman would be able to manhandle him like that; he made a mental note to be more careful around Shisui in case he wanted to make this kind of thing regular. 

“Drop the humble act, Itachi.” Shisui dropped to the bench as well, bracing his elbows on his knees and leaning in close. A conspiratorial grin spread across his face. “Let’s get you a girlfriend, shall we?”

\--

Tachibana Naomi was exhausted.

She woke up early that morning to drop a gift in Itachi’s locker, but only barely got it in place before someone called her out to a mission in town. Apparently some Kirish sleeper agent activated shortly after she and Itachi had returned, and the agent dropped chakra-poisons in every buffet lunch, catering dinner, and communal coffee pot between the Inuzuka home and the Aburame lands. She spent a solid 11 hours dosing a hundred Academy students with antidote and monitoring their vitals, then another three hours speaking to their parents and answering a thousand questions about their continued care. The day had been a total wash. She was ready to pick up her things, go home, go to bed, and forget the whole thing ever happened. 

The only silver lining she could hope for was that maybe this time, Itachi would get the hint, though she was starting to think he’d never catch on unless she took her feelings to him directly. That had never been her style; much as she wanted to confront him, it would take weeks of rehearsing exactly what she wanted to say and removing every possible abrasive comeback from her system in the days leading up to the confession. And even then, knowing how dense the man was? It might not work.

She pushed open the heavy wooden door that lead to her office. The Poison Dungeon, the covert med-nin called it. Truly, it was a dungeon. Eerie, drafty, a less than romantic backdrop for a budding young woman. Not that there was anything romantic about her life lately--

“Good evening, doctor.”

Naomi paused in the entryway, the door still wide open. In the center of the room, directly under a hanging lightbulb that wasn’t doing his complexion any favors and caddy-corner to her horribly messy desk, was Itachi. Itachi, dressed in a fluffy bathrobe with the tag still hanging from its sleeve. Itachi, lying luxuriantly on the broken-up concrete floor in front of a steaming basin of water. Itachi, with a goddamn rose in his mouth. Itachi, looking less than comfortable with the whole situation.

“Um.” She reached back to close the door, taking a brief second to compose herself while faced away. “Good evening. I’m not a doctor. You know that, right?”

Itachi paused for a second, then finally removed the rose from his mouth. “I do,” he murmured. “Shisui told me to say that.” He sat up, folding his calves under himself and touching a knuckle to his top lip. “This is not going as well as he said it would…”

Naomi watched him for a second, peering around him at the basin of water.  _ How did he even get that down here? _ , she wondered.  _ The nearest tap is two levels up. And that better not be chakra-water. That’s got to be bad for your skin.  _ “So Shisui put you up to this, huh? Great sense of humor on that one.” She folded her arms, scowling down at Itachi.

“No,” he responded, almost too quickly, too nervously. He fidgeted in his kneel and looked down at the rose, gingerly pinched in his left hand. “Well, he did put me up to this, but it was because I wasn’t… catching onto your meaning. I kept seeing those gifts as friendly, or professional.”

“I made you chocolates. That’s much less than professional.”

Itachi bowed his head. “I realize that now.” He cleared his throat, them straightened to look at her. “Forgive me. I’m new at this. Romance has never been a part of my life. But, if you’re interested…” Itachi turned over his shoulder to look at the basin of water, then back at Naomi, a sparkling smile in place on his burning red cheeks. “Maybe we could both use a nice bath to relax?”

Naomi’s rich laugh filled the room, resounding off the walls. She was still laughing as she shucked her leggings, kicked off her sandals, unzipped the neck of her shirt and threw it to the ground, unlatched the chainmail bodice and dropped it all in a pile on the ground. “You’re so unromantic,” she snickered. “But it’s genuine. I like that. Come here, take off that robe.”

A beet-red color bloomed on Itachi’s already red face, and his ears seemed like they’d burn to crisps. He tensed when Naomi approached, fidgeted when she gently pinched the top of one ear. “You’re not quite ready for all of this yet, are you? Good thing that scent bar creates soap bubbles. Maybe a little cover will help you feel more comfortable,” she teased. Naomi dropped the last of her clothes on the floor behind him and slipped into the basin, sliding deep into the water and swishing it to create a fluffy, soapy surface. “Join me when you’re ready.”

Minutes passed. Itachi eventually untied the robe, but retied it when he felt Naomi’s eyes on his back. Once she looked away again he let it fall around his hips, shifted to unfold it from his legs, and reached back for the little orange candle. Holding it tightly as if for courage, he slipped in the opposite of the basin, nudging one of her legs with his shin when he was settled.

Naomi met his eyes and smiled when he blew a puff of flame across the candle’s wick. She reached out to take it from him, forming a little basin of chakra-infused water-- _ apparently it’s real water. How did he get that down here? _ \-- to set it down on. “You know,” she commented, “You’re cute when you get all red like that. Your ears even change color.”

Itachi clapped his hands over his ears, sinking down in the water.

Chuckling, Naomi pushed the little candle around on top of the water. “Sorry. But you are cute, you know.” 

She leaned back in the basin, relaxing into the warm water, and Itachi watched her, half-submerged as he was. A droplet of water crawled from her damp hair to her throat, down her neck, into a collarbone and back to the basin itself; he followed the trail of water backwards, then finally focused on her face. 

Itachi cleared his throat and braced his palms on the bottom of the basin. “Do you mind if I kiss you?” 

Naomi smiled. “Go right ahead.”

A rivulet of water ran down the back of the basin as Itachi pressed closer to Naomi. Her hair spilled over the edge, Itachi’s hair over her shoulders, and she resolved to clean up the soap bubbles on the floor much, much later.

\--

“So I heard the cleaning staff were in a rage this morning. Soap scum on the Poison Dungeon floor? Candle wax?” Shisui grinned, leaning up against the lockers. “What did you two get up to?”

Itachi wound his hair around his hand, then coiled it at the peak of his head to tie it in a bun. “A very relaxing bath,” he replied. “Warm water is very good for the muscles, you know. Perfectly medical.”

Shisui frowned. “Wait. I gave you a  _ rose _ , Itachi, what are you--” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t tell me you dropped the ball again.”

“What do you mean? I went to thank my doctor for her treatment.” Hair firmly in place, Itachi spun the padlock open and pulled at the cubby door. “And that’s what I did.”

“ _ Itachi. _ Do we have to have another talk?” Shisui sighed deeply and wheeled on his friend, arms wide. “And now you’re not even listening to me!”

Sure enough, Itachi wasn’t listening. He was busy smiling down at the note in his cubby. ‘Thanks for visiting yesterday,’ it said. ‘I’d like to see you again tonight. Come with me?’ Gently, he lifted the note to reveal a pair of film tickets; The Land of Fire Film School Presents a Tribute to the Love Stories of the Warring States Period, they read. Perfect for a second date.

He smiled back at his raving companion and slipped out of the locker room, note and film tickets folded safely in his pocket.

\--

Shisui pretended to keep up his rant until Itachi was out of earshot. He let his hands drop to his sides, a giggle bubbling up in his belly, 

He didn’t quite catch what was written on those tickets, but his bet was on some cheesy film festival in west Konoha, one of the ones billed for young couples. Regardless. He resolved to catch up with Itachi tomorrow. There were so many years of puppy-love-teasing he had to make up for.


End file.
